The Older Sister
by AtrociousWriter
Summary: Nepgear's dimensional experiment goes wrong, and she switches with herself from another dimension, a dimension where Neptune is the younger sister.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Hyperdimension Neptunia or any of its material which includes, but is not limited to, characters, setting, and/or items, which are owned by their respective owners.

* * *

All preparations were complete. Dimensional tethers were strong and stable. Containment forcefield energy at one-hundred percent. Safety goggles on. Schedule for the next three weeks emptied. Pudding stock for Neptune refilled. Nepgear ensured nothing could possibly interrupt her sensitive experiment, for any lapse in concentration would mean the destruction of not one, but two entire dimensions.

Her goal today was to create a portal between her dimension and another. The conventional method of using magic and share energy took too long and was unreliable, so she searched for another way of creating multidimensional portals using technology. With the help of her own observations of the portal between her and Plutia's worlds and notes she "borrowed" from MAGES. (she would return them later), Nepgear created her prototype portal. Today was the day of its initial test run.

In order to ensure that the experiment will stop before anything unexpected occurs, Nepgear decided to slowly feed power into the portal. As she steadily cranked the power supply on, the conglomeration of wires and metal molded into the shape of a ring began to hum quietly. Sparks began to erupt from the center of the ring, then the dimensional fabric opened into a small, circular rift. Nepgear continued to crank the lever on the generator up, from level 4 to level 5. As the machine received more power, the portal it created began to expand. All was going according to plan.

"Hiya, Nep Jr.! What'cha doin' in your lab!" Neptune suddenly barged in, literally kicking the door off its hinges. "Oopsies! I'll fix that later."

"W-What the goodness!" Nepgear exclaimed, being startled by her older sister. Unknowingly, she also cranked the lever past level 10 onto the hastily scribbled level 11. The portal within the machine suddenly expanded and began acting like a vortex, sucking in the air around and its machine. By the time Nepgear noticed her experiment had gone wrong, the forcefield generator within her laboratory had already been sucked into the vortex.

"Ooo! Nep Jr., are you trying to create a black hole? It would make cleaning the basilicom much faster." Neptune remarked.

"Oh no… Sis, this isn't the time for jokes! You have to get out of here!" Nepgear yelled, shoving Neptune out of the room. However, before Nepgear herself could escape, the vortex sucked the unhinged door right into her face, taking her, the door, and the power generator inside of itself. With no power or machine left to sustain it, the vortex closed with a blinding flash of light, the dimensional fabric repairing itself.

"Nepgear? Nepgear!" Neptune hastily dashed into the lab she was shoved out of, and found Nepgear and a beam saber where the vortex was. She was missing her safety goggles. "Wake up, Nepgear! Speak to me!"

"Ngh… Neptune?" Nepgear came to her senses and looked around. The tile was scorched from what appeared to be an explosion that centered on her. The room appeared to be empty save for her, her beam saber, and Neptune, who was currently holding Nepgear in her arms. "What happened? I remember a portal expanding while I was doing some lab work."

"We'll worry about that later, sis. For now, we need to get you some rest." Neptune helped Nepgear get up, and the two exited the now barren room.

"Thank you, little sis."

* * *

Nepgear awoke. Her safety goggles were covered in soot, so she lifted them from her eyes and onto her head. She looked around. She was on her laboratory door, and bits of charred scrap metal and frayed wiring were strewn about in the room she was in. She stood up and dusted herself off. She then heard the sound of desperate knocking from the hinged door.

"Nepgear, open up! I heard a loud noise. What happened in there?" Neptune yelled through the door, her voice getting muffled in the process. She then proceed to kick the door open without tearing it from its hinges.

"Everything was going fine, Neptune, until you barged in," Nepgear replied.

"I didn't do anything this time! Maybe the fumes in the lab and the office are making you hallucinate. You'll be as right as sunshine after a nice bath and a dose of pudding. You've been working two laps around the clock, and Dr. Nep says that is unhealthy," Neptune uttered her rant without taking a breath, and Nepgear was unable to get a single word in.

Nepgear tensed up as Neptune attempted to drag her out of the room, presumably to a bath and pudding. "Relax for once, Nepgear, we can talk about what happened later."

"O-Okay. Thank you, big sis."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Phew, first chapter under the belt! A little ambitious for my first fanfic to not be a oneshot, but I could not focus on anything else with this in my head. Feedback would be appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 2

~~~CPUs~~~

Nepgear woke up. She had a really weird dream, being sucked into a portal while she was doing routine maintenance on her beam saber. Currently, she was in the sheets of her bottom bunk inside her and Neptune's room. She must have slept late again after staying up all night to finish some paperwork. A model CPU, and a model sister, should always finish paperwork that was planned for that day. She redressed herself with fresh clothes, and checked the time using her N-Gear. It was two in the afternoon. It was two in the afternoon! This was terrible! She had planned to spend time with Neptune today, but now she had to catch up on the piles of paperwork that came with running a nation.

"Shirking her CPU duties again! I really need to break this habit of hers," Histoire shouted, annoyance dripping from her voice. Nepgear assumed Histoire was getting ready to lecture her down the hallway as she left her room. Histoire hated it when Nepgear stayed up all night doing office work, and would always tell her about the importance of time management. Hoping to preemptively end the lecture before it started, she hurried to the living room the sound of frustration was coming from in order to apologize.

"Histoire, I-"

"Neptune, this is not the time to play games! Your shares are steadily declining, and you haven't touched any of the documents I left on your desk for three months! You have a country to run!" Nepgear was greeted with the sight of Histoire hovering between Neptune's face and the television screen, Histoire shouting so hard she was red in the face and steam was pouring out of her ears.

"Histoire, I'm the CPU of Planeptune, not Neptune. Don't be so hard on her, she's just a CPU Candidate after all," Nepgear interjected as she enter the room.

"Yeah, Histy, I'm just a CPU Can- wait, what?!" As much as Neptune loved to invent excuses for not working, she would never relinquish her pride in saying she was not the CPU of Planeptune. "Hold up, Nep Jr., doing more work than me doesn't mean you can just waltz on in here and take my title from me! Now I see why you called me 'little sis' earlier; you were trying to usurp your dearest big sister. How cruel!" Neptune vocally waxed melodramatic in an attempt to lighten the mood, but she only received an angry look from Histoire and a confused look from Nepgear.

"Little sis, I _am_ older than you. You're centuries younger than I am," Nepgear replied.

As Histoire observed the dialogue between the sisters, her look of anger transitioned into a look of confusion. Why was Nepgear saying things that did not make sense? She raised Neptune, then helped raise Nepgear, so she knew who was older. Unless… "Nepgear, what were you doing the last time you were in your lab?" she asked.

"I was doing routine maintenance on my beam saber, why?" Nepgear replied.

"Did anything weird happen while you were doing this?"

"Well… " Nepgear thought for a moment. "It may have been just a dream, but a vortex appeared out of nowhere and sucked me in," Nepgear blushed slightly, embarrassed to recount to Histoire what she thought was a dream.

Histoire turned to Neptune, ready to ask for her side of the story, until she noticed the normally lively CPU deep in thought. "Histoire," Neptune said, "this Nepgear isn't our Nepgear."

It was Nepgear's turn to look confused. What did they mean, "isn't our Nepgear?" There was only one Nepgear, and that was her. "Don't be silly sis, of course I'm your Nepgear. There's only one of me, after all," Nepgear said.

"What Neptune is trying to say," Histoire said,"is that you're a Nepgear from another dimension." With Histoire's words, Nepgear's mind finally pieced it all together. Why the Basilicom was decorated differently, why Neptune took offense to being called a CPU Candidate, and why Histoire berated Neptune instead of her. It all made sense.

"W… Wha… What the goodness?!"

~~~Candidates~~~

"Neptune, I'm fine! Honest!" Nepgear said in between forced spoonfuls of creme caramel pudding being shoved into her mouth. Nepgear agreed on playing doctor with Neptune after the incident in the lab; She spent little time with Neptune as of late, having spent most of her free time on her experiment. Neptune must be lonely, her only sister being occupied inside her lab all day.

"Don't worry Nepgear. Dr. Nep has only one more spoon of pudding for ya. Here comes the airplane!" Neptune said. After having scraped up the last of the pudding from her plate into her spoon, Neptune made whooshing noises with her mouth accompanied with moving the spoon through the air. Nepgear could not help but chuckle at Neptune's childish antics, which Neptune capitalized on by shoving the final spoon of pudding into her sister's mouth.

Nepgear enjoyed the tender loving care she received from Neptune, as she was usually the one spoon-feeding pudding to Neptune. She would not have minded this, if not for the fact she was stuffed into a strait jacket by Neptune. "Sis, is this strait jacket really necessary to play doctor?" she asked.

"Of course it is, Nepgear. You've been calling me 'big sis' all day, and you never have time to spend with me because you're always working! It's not fair!" Neptune replied.

"I call you 'big sis' because you are my big sister, and I work all the time because you never do," Nepgear retorted. Neptune froze up; Nepgear's words had struck a chord in her, making Nepgear feel guilty about what she just said. However, before she could apologize to Neptune, she heard the ringing of Histoire as she entered the sisters' bedroom.

"Ababababababa-"

"Histy! What's wrong?" Neptune said, ignoring her sister's words for now and focusing on the issue at hand.

"Histoire is receiving a call from another dimension. Let's wait for her to pick up," Nepgear answered while she struggled to break free from her strait jacket.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Ababababa abababababababa abababa**


	3. Chapter 3

~~CPUs~~~

Nepgear was getting anxious as she and Neptune awaited for the Histoire in her dimension to answer the call, with the Histoire currently in front of them having a blank expression as she did this. Nepgear looks over towards Neptune, who, going by their brief exchange earlier and how her own Neptune acted, was being uncharacteristically silent. Her expression was almost as blank as Histoire was, if not for the faintest hint of worry Nepgear could spot in her eyes.

The other Histoire finally answered, and the trio was greeted to a screen appearing in front of them; inside was Nepgear in a strait jacket. "Hiya Nep Jr.! Why are you in a strait jacket?" Neptune asked, her bubbly personality rising back to the surface.

"Well, Neptune, I-"

"Oh, I know! You traded places with a Nepgear who was admitted to an insane asylum in her dimension, which can only mean… " Neptune said as she turned toward the Nepgear next to her and gazed upon her with suspicion. Nepgear recoiled at Neptune's implication. Histoire was busy joining the palm of her hand and her face together.

"Surely we could do without the jokes during a serious situation such as this," Histoire muttered, not-so-subtly chiding Neptune.

"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley!" Neptune replied, donning a pout in feigned offense.

"Hey, there's another me there, and another Histoire, and another Nepgear! Hello there, impostors! Give me back my big sister or your friend here is gonna get it!" the Neptune in the screen said, holding her spoon to the strait-jacketed Nepgear's neck.

"Girls, this is serious! One of our Planeptunes is stuck without a proper CPU!" Histoire shouted.

"I agree with my other self, we need to focus on getting the Nepgears back to their original dimensions," the Histoire in the screen added.

"It'll be fine for now, Histoires, don't worry. We are basically the same person, so whatever she did here I could do just as well," the younger Nepgear said, attempting to downplay the urgency of the situation.

"She's right Histoire, if you could trust me to run Planeptune well, you could definitely trust her. Like she said, we are the same person," the older Nepgear said.

The Histoire projecting the screen sighed. "Okay then Nepgear, I'll trust your judgement. I'll help myself in finding a way to get you back home. It should take the both of us three days to make a portal between dimensions using our current share energy."

"I believe we covered everything important, so for now this is goodbye," Histoire said as she was about to hang up on herself and the CPU Candidates.

"Wait, one last thing: take care of big sis for me, me," the younger Nepgear said to her older counterpart, who was surprised. She was about to say the same thing to her younger self. Before she could, however, Histoire had hung up.

~~~Candidates~~~

As the screen showing the Planeptune CPUs and Histoire flickered off, Histoire turned to face Nepgear. "I forgot to ask myself this, but how exactly did this happen?" she asked her.

"I was experimenting with opening a portal to another dimension using technology, but Neptune surprised me as I was testing it out and made me cause the machine to malfunction, b-but it wasn't her fault, it was mine! I should've been more careful," Nepgear answered.

"Thank you, Nepgear, that explained quite a lot. Now, if you excuse me, I have to help my other self setup a portal for you to return home," Histoire said, floating out of the sisters' bedroom while on her book.

The silence in the room after Histoire left was deafening. Nepgear used this as an opportunity to apologize. "Sis- no, Neptune, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Nepgear. You probably meant it for the other Neptune, not me, right?" Neptune said. Nepgear nodded at her response, but it did little to assuage her guilt toward the fellow CPU Candidate. "Here let me help you out of the strait jacket."

After removing the strait jacket, the CPU Candidates set about their separate tasks with silence. Nepgear left the bedroom to go to her CPU counterpart's office to do paperwork and other CPU duties. Neptune climbed to her top bunk to lie down, mulling over the words Nepgear said, even if they were not meant for her.

"Working all the time because I never do, huh?"

* * *

"What the goodness…?" Nepgear murmured as her face drained itself of blood. She was no stranger to paperwork as Histoire occasionally let her do some (all) of the paperwork Neptune was supposed to do, but the stacks before her easily towered over the workload she usually handled. Now she understood what Neptune meant when she said her older sister did too much work. Having accepted her fate, Nepgear sat down on the abnormally comfortable office chair and got to work.

* * *

"Goodness. that was something," Nepgear said, having finished sorting her first tower of papers. She had started at three in the afternoon, and it was currently four. She took a deep breath. With only three more stacks left, she could probably finish by seven-

"Here's some more of the paperwork, Nepgear. I forgot to send these to you earlier. I hope you don't mind the intrusion," Histoire said as she pushed the squeaky wheels of an office cart into the CPU office, filled to the brim with more paperwork.

"No problem, Histoire I don't mind," Nepgear replied, forcing a smile. As soon as Histoire left, she fell to the floor, giving herself a momentary respite from the overbearing workload. She stared at the ceiling, in denial at the amount of work that surrounded her. A certain purple-haired CPU Candidate entered her view.

"Howdy do, Nepgear! You shouldn't rest on the floor, it's bad for you back," Neptune said, giving Nepgear a bright smile. She offered a hand to Nepgear, helping her get back to her feet. "I've been thinking about what you said earlier, and I decided to help you out with the office work," Neptune added, her cheery smile transitioning into a more bashful one as she said that.

"But Neptune-"

"No buts! Four hands are way better than two. Plus, I need to know how to do this now so when big sis comes back, we could spend more time together!" Neptune exclaimed, intense determination burning in her eyes. Nepgear knew that only two things were infinite, the universe and Neptune's stubbornness, and she did not mind the extra help. She handed Neptune a pen in silent acceptance of her offer and proceeded to set up a smaller desk next to hers.

"Okay, then let's get to work!"

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Sorry for the slight delay, folks. I was busy playing games and eating pudding.**


	4. Chapter 4

~~~CPUs~~~

"And then I said, 'Oatmeal, are you crazy?'" Neptune said, finishing her story to Nepgear, who had only been half listening. To her credit, she was helping her fellow CPU do her three week backlog of paperwork that dwarfed in comparison to how much she did daily. As she filed away the papers in her hand, she noticed Neptune was sitting on a beanbag beside the window, observing the outside, doing none of the work.

"Neptune, could you help me finish your paperwork?" Nepgear asked. Nepgear found it highly unbecoming of a CPU, the administrative leader and metaphorical backbone of a country, to be as lazy as Neptune was being right now.

"No thanks, Nepgear. If I leave it alone long enough, Histoire or Nepgear, the other you, that is, would do it for me, like right now," Neptune responded. Nepgear was taken aback at how negligent Neptune was at doing basic paperwork, and wondered if she acted like this toward her other CPU duties.

As Nepgear returned to the desk, she noticed that she had finished all of Neptune's backlog in time for dinner. As if on cue, the CPUs' stomachs growled in unison. "Nepgear, could you go make me dinner, please?" Neptune asked.

"Sorry Neptune, I don't know how to cook. Neptune always cooked for me back at my dimension," Nepgear replied, causing Neptune to be distraught.

"Alas, poor stomach! I knew him, Nepgear: a fellow of infinite wisdom, of most excellent fancy: he hath stored pudding inside him a thousand times; and now, how mistreated my stomach is!" Neptune recited, feigning a collapse in front of Nepgear, complete with wailing. She crawled over to Nepgear's legs, pretending to lose her strength as she grabbed the other CPU's shins. "Feed… Me… "

Nepgear snickered at Neptune's little scene. It seemed that Neptune was a great comedian in any dimension. "Don't worry, Neptune. We could eat at a restaurant instead. I'm sure Histoire wouldn't mind if we spent the credits we earned doing quests to eat outside," Nepgear suggested.

Neptune, having finished her skit, stood up. "That's a great idea, Nepgear, but you're paying. I've spent all my credits buying games, and I haven't done quests for three months now," she replied. Nepgear was truly appalled at the embodiment of sloth that was the Planeptune CPU before her. Not only were quests an integral part of maintaining one's own shares, they also kept the monsters from attacking the citizens of one's nation by keeping the population in check.

As much as Nepgear would love to make Neptune a proper CPU, three days was nowhere near time for a personality adjustment. Still, she had to give it a shot for this Planeptune's sake. She would worry about it after eating, however.

* * *

Nepgear rarely went outside to eat, but when she did, she always chose her favorite restaurant. The pinnacle of Planeptune cuisine, happiness in edible form, Nepgear's guilty pleasure. She would only eat at this specific restaurant in Planeptune, and she was thankful the dimensions were similar enough to have one here. No other could ever replace it in her heart.

It was… Nepburger.

Nepgear loved Nepburger's Nepburgers. She loved the Nepfries. She loved the pudding shakes. She loved the novelty Nepsi glasses they poured drinks in. She loved the Nepgeardam toy that came with every kid's meal. She loved the family diner aesthetic. This restaurant was Nepgear's home away from home, and she often had to be dragged out of the place come closing time.

As Neptune drank her pudding shake in silence, she noticed the waiting staff was giving her table a wide berth, with good reason. Nepgear was ravenously devouring her smorgasbord of everything in the menu. Neptune was impressed at Nepgear's appetite, but was slightly disturbed at the bestial sight happening parallel to her at the table.

Right as Neptune thought it would never end, Nepgear had finished her meal, and motioned for a waiter to come over. Neptune sighed in relief. The faster she could leave Nepburger, the faster she could forget what transpired here today. A waiter approached hesitantly. "W-What can I do for you, L-Lady Nepgear?" he asked nervously.

"One more of everything, please," Nepgear replied enthusiastically.

"What the goodness," Neptune muttered under her breath, channeling her inner Nepgear. At least she was not paying.

~~~Candidates~~~

The CPU candidates had finished all the office work by five in the evening. The two were sitting back on their chairs, exhausted. "My hands are killing me," Neptune said, staring at her pink, slightly swollen hands.

"You said it, Neptune," Nepgear added. She checked her N-Gear. It was almost time for dinner. She stood up from her chair, stretching her arms and legs, and headed for the kitchen, passing by a now napping Neptune.

As Nepgear entered the kitchen, she started taking inventory of what was available. After checking all the cabinets and the refrigerator, it appeared that Nepgear could make virtually any dish she wanted to. She decided on making some simple pasta, and started taking out the noodles and necessary equipment from the cupboards.

Neptune shakily entered the kitchen, her nap being interrupted from the noise Nepgear was making. "You don't have to cook for us, Nepgear. You're the guest in this basilicom, after all," Neptune said, having fully recovered from her nap.

"I have to cook, though. I need to stay in practice for my big sister when I go back home," Nepgear replied as she pulled out vegetables from the fridge for her pasta sauce.

"I still feel bad having you do it yourself, so let me help!" Neptune insisted. As Nepgear turned to face the fellow Candidate to decline her offer, she fell into Neptune's trap. She gazed upon wide puppy-dog eyes and a small, quivering frown.

"Neptune, I… I… " Nepgear stuttered, trying to say no to the sad face before her. Neptune increased her efforts by getting teary-eyed and giving a slight whimper.

"Please, Nepgear? I promise I won't get in the way," Neptune said with a sickly sweet voice that almost gave Nepgear a heart attack. She was losing her resolve to say no to her.

"Okay, Neptune. I can't say no to that face. Here," Nepgear said, handing Neptune a kitchen knife. "Help me cut up the vegetables." Nepgear did not like the idea of having help in the kitchen, she had pride in needing no help in making food, but the young Neptune's help, and company, was not unpleasant.

* * *

"Dinner's ready!" Nepgear exclaimed as she and Neptune had finished setting the table and bringing the pasta out from the kitchen. Histoire entered the dining room, having heard Nepgear's call.

"Goodness, Nepgear. You didn't have to cook for us. The pasta looks and smells delicious," Histoire said, her eyes filled with hunger.

"It's fine, Histoire. I had help from Neptune making this, right, Neptune?" Nepgear said, turning her head towards the Candidate. Neptune was unable to answer as she was busy stuffing her face full of pasta. She glanced over to Histoire, and saw that she was also busy eating some of her created dish. Nepgear shrugged and began to dig in herself.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Another Chapter down~!**


	5. Chapter 5

~~~Candidates~~~

Nepgear sighed. The sun had set on her very eventful day, and the Candidates were preparing for bed. Despite Neptune's insistence that Nepgear should sleep in her bed, she decided to sleep in her CPU counterpart's bottom bunk. She oddly felt more comfortable with a mattress above her.

Nepgear thought about her experiment that started it all off. Though it may not have gone as well as she had expected, it was still a success. Nepgear traveled to a different dimension while simultaneously sending the Nepgear in this dimension over to hers. She also met new people, even if those new people were dimensional alternates of the people she already knew.

"Are you sure about this, Nepgear? The top bunk is very comfy!" Neptune said as she poked her head down to look at Nepgear. Her upside-down face had concern all over it, the concern of a host that feels she had not treated her guest well enough.

"Don't worry about it. This bed feels comfortable enough for me," Nepgear replied as she gave Neptune a reassuring smile. "Good night, Neptune," she added, resting her head down onto her pillow and closing her eyes.

"Good night, Nepgear," Neptune replied, doing the same.

* * *

Nepgear heard sniffling, and felt the warmth of someone next to her. She opened her eyes and found Neptune in bed beside her, hugging her and quietly sniffling. "What's wrong, Neptune?" Nepgear asked softly.

"It was terrible, big sis! I-I had this weird sword, and w-we were killing our friends! F-first we started with Miss Uni and Noire. U-Uni impaled herself on the sword, then Noire a-asked me to kill her," Neptune said in between sobs.

"Then we went to Lowee and we killed M-Miss Rom and Miss R-Ram. Blanc just

S-started crying as she held her older sisters in her… her arms. Th-Then she started screaming, and I m-made her stop, forever, " Neptune continued, her sobbing becoming more frequent.

"And then we went to Leanbox, where V-Vert just hugged me and told me she forgave while the s-sword was g-going through her," Neptune said as tears were starting to pour from her eyes again. Nepgear knew where this was going; she had the same nightmare before.

"When we got home, you… you… you were… " Neptune could not finish her story as she started crying her eyes out, muffling the noise she made by using Nepgear's shoulder.

"There, There, Neptune. I'm right here. I won't be leaving anytime soon, I promise," Nepgear whispered, patting Neptune's head. Nepgear lied, she would leave Neptune that day after the next, but the other Nepgear, Neptune's actual big sister, would come back and take care of her as well as she did right now. Not wanting to make the Candidate feel embarrassed right after her nightmare, she pretended to be the older Nepgear.

Neptune's crying slowly stopped. "Thanks for everything, big sis. I love you," Neptune said, tightening her hug around Nepgear.

"I love you too, little sis," Nepgear replied. Guilt was stirring in her heart, but Nepgear thought it was for the best. Neptune needed her big sister right now, not her.

* * *

BOOM!

Sirens were blaring. Guards were on high alert. A dangerous prisoner had escaped her cell using blast magic. The force field was powered on to lock down the perimeter. Dogs were dispatched to sniff her out. The entire prison was on high alert. Every room, every vent, every space under each desk was searched, to no avail.

Arfoire had escaped.

~~~CPUs~~~

Neptune could not go to sleep, no matter how hard she tried. Something was off about tonight, and it was not the alternate-dimension Nepgear in the bunk below her. She felt like something, long, purple, and tasted bad was approaching.

"Do you feel them coming, too?" Nepgear asked, to Neptune's surprise. She thought Nepgear would fall into a food coma after all the Nepburger she ate.

"Feel what?" Neptune replied.

" _Eggplants…_ " Nepgear said, her voice dripping with disgust as she uttered the word. "Don't get me wrong," she added, "eggplants are a nutritious vegetable that should be eaten to stay healthy, but there are superior, less disgusting, alternatives."

Neptune understood now. She felt this same feeling when saving IF from Arfoire at the eggplant farm. She peered over her bunk to the one below, and saw the Nepgear was missing. She looked around the room, and saw the other CPU opening a window, prepared to jump out.

"Where ya headed, Nepgear?" Neptune asked, surprised. She never thought a model CPU such as Nepgear would sneak out at night.

"To deal with the eggplants," Nepgear replied with a devilish smile as she jumped out of the window. A flash of light came from outside shortly after, signalling her transformation.

"H-Hey! Wait for me!" Neptune said, hastily launching herself off the bed and out of the window in one physics-defying move. She also transformed as soon as she got outside. Neptune, now Purple Heart, looked around and saw an older looking Nepgear in an outfit in similar style and color to hers.

"Yours looks nothing like my little sister's transformation," Nepgear said, her voice also being matured. "Oh, and this form is called Violet Heart by my citizens."

"I could say the same about yours," Purple Heart responded, "And they call this form Purple Heart."

"Shall we?" Violet Heart asked, flying off toward where she sensed the eggplants. Purple Heart nodded, and flew off after her.

* * *

This was Arfoire's lucky night. She managed to escape the prison she was locked up at using the cooked eggplants she had saved up each day as bombs to blast through her cell wall. As she left the area, a considerable shipment of raw eggplants were on their way to that forsaken place. Not only did she get her freedom back thanks to eggplants, now she had a ten-thousand strong eggplant army, ready to raze Planeptune to the ground. She estimated that her army combined is double the power of the Planeptune CPU and her measly Candidate with their currently low shares.

Currently, Arfoire and her eggplant battalion were on the edge of Planeptune, organizing themselves and preparing an assault on the city, until she was rudely interrupted by two laser blasts. Pew! Pew! The shots were aimed straight at Arfoire's head, which she promptly dodged. "Who dares to challenge me and my eggplant army?!" She shouted, turning her gaze toward the direction of the shooter.

It was her sworn nemesis Purple Heart, along with an unfamiliar CPU who looked somewhat familiar. Curses! Arfoire had not expected Neptune to have another CPU to back her up, nor for her plan to be discovered this early.

She heard the two CPUs talking to each other.

"What happens now?" Purple Heart asked.

"Now," Violet Heart replied, pointing her gun blade at the eggplant soldiers,"we paint the town purple. Multiple Beam Launcher!" She let loose a beam of intense energy from her weapon, wiping out an entire line of soldiers.

"Grr… I won't got down that easily," Arfoire cried, clashing blades with Purple Heart.

The battle lasted the whole night, and neither CPU received any sleep.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Sorry, I lied about that slice of life part in the poll. I don't think having Arfoire come in and cause trouble counts as slice of life, nor is having nightmares an everyday thing. Still, this is way more light-hearted (and certainly less angsty) than the other thing I had planned.**


	6. Chapter 6

~~~Candidates~~~

Nepgear opened her eyes. Instead of being greeted with Neptune and her other self's bedroom sideways, she awoke to see a room of Leanbox design right-side up. It was devoid of any furniture save the chair she was tied to and a plain ceiling lamp in the center. "Good morning, Nepgear," a familiar but higher pitched voice whispered into Nepgear's ear. She felt two very cushy, round objects rub against her arm.

"It's your turn to teach me on how to be a CPU, and not only were you late last time, you left early, so…" Nepgear felt her bindings tighten slightly, "I hope you don't mind if I carried you here and tied you up, all while you were sleeping." Nepgear turned her head to meet the gaze of her captor, and saw that it was Vert, a younger, smaller, grinning Vert.

"Don't worry about Neptune," she continued, "Histoire is there for her, and I left her something that will tell her you're with me."

* * *

"Mmm… Big sis… " Neptune murmured, cuddling who she thought was Nepgear.

"You think I'm your big sis…?" the figure she was clutching replied.

Neptune opened her eyes, embarrassed. She must have confused the Nepgear with her with her big sister. "Oh, sorry Nep-"

"Too bad. It's me, Nepugia!"

"GYAAH!"

* * *

After Nepgear successfully persuaded Vert into untying her, they decided to play Butcher Inclination on her Leanbox One in Vert's bedroom. "Wow, Nepgear. You got better at this since last time we played," Vert commented.

"It's nothing, really. I only really know how to play Saberwolf," Nepgear replied. She had won her third match in a row against Vert, and her fingers were starting to get tired. "Is it okay if we take a short break?" she asked.

"Sure thing, Nepgear," Vert answered, "I'll prepare us some tea." Vert slowly sauntered out, closing the door as she left.

Nepgear opened a window and leaned outside."I wonder how Neptune's doing right now," she said to no one in particular. She would be in for a rude awakening soon, her hug pillow being abducted in the middle of night to a neighboring country.

"Speak of the devil and she shall appear!" Nepgear heard being shouted from a distance. She scanned the horizon, and spotted a bright purple speck flying full speed towards her. As the light approached, she found it was Neptune, transformed into Violet Sister. Her body did not change much, save for her eyes, and her outfit was similar to Nepgear's when she transforms into Purple Sister. "Hiya, Nepgear! I'm here to pick you up. You, well, the other you, is supposed to babysit her next week."

"Funny, I clearly remember marking the day for Nepgear's visit on my calendar as today, Neptune," Vert replied, causing a startled Nepgear to turn around. Vert calmly set down the tray holding the teapot and three teacups onto the coffee table. "Come in and have some tea, Neptune," Vert said, "I expected you would come, so I brought an extra cup." She slowly poured tea into the cups, and handed one to Nepgear.

Neptune reverted to her normal form and entered the room. "I almost cut Nepugia in half, Vert," Neptune mentioned, "you gotta stop replacing Nepgear with her." She took a sip of the tea Vert handed her, then promptly slammed it hard enough on the saucer to cause it to shatter. "You gotta stop abducting Nepgear, too! This isn't even my big sister; she switched places with a Nepgear from a different dimension!" Neptune asserted, trying to sip from the now shattered cup.

"That was a moderately priced cup," Vert commented, "and also, if this Nepgear wasn't your big sister, why were you two hugging last night going 'I love you, sis'?" Vert added, envy dripping from her words as she asked.

"Care to explain that, Nepgear?" Neptune asked Nepgear, her face turning red from a mix of anger and embarrassment.

"I-I just wanted to be treated like a big sister for once, since everyone says I always act like one. S-Sorry if I played with your feelings Neptune," Nepgear replied, attempting to reassure the fellow Candidate.

"W-Well, it's not like I hate you for it. J-Just don't do it again," Neptune responded, taking a page from Noire's tsundere book.

"Now that that's been taken care of, how about we lighten the mood with some Frenzy Fuzion?" Vert Interjected, holding three controllers up.

"I call Zak!" Neptune said, grabbing a controller from Vert's hands.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **I rewrote this chapter many times because it didn't sit right with me, and I planned to write more, but I didn't want to make you wait any longer. Sorry for that, by the way!**


	7. Chapter 7

~~~CPUs~~~

Neptune darted back and forth between doorways as she made her way through one of the basilicom hallways. Ever since the CPU woke up, Nepgear had been dead set on getting Neptune to work. First, the half-asleep Neptune was led by Nepgear to the office with the promise of sweets; she managed to catch on to what was happening before Nepgear could lock the door. Neptune may have escaped from the room, but she could not escape from the basilicom, as Nepgear managed to convince Histoire to put the basilicom on lockdown to prevent the CPU from fleeing.

Neptune would have been fine with all of this, if not for the fact that the fridge containing all her pudding was locked and all her games in the lounge were missing. Neptune wondered if the fellow CPU even slept at all after the battle, having planned all of this all to make Neptune do some paperwork. It was a war of attrition, and Nepgear made sure it would make Neptune break faster than she did.

As Neptune approached her destination, she could hear the sounds of eating and forced laughter. Neptune opened the door slightly and saw Histoire and Nepgear at a table, eating some pudding. "Ha. Ha. Ha. I love eating all this pudding with you Histoire," Nepgear shouted, ensuring that her words could be heard from the doorway. "Isn't pudding just the most delicious thing ever?"

"O-Oh, yes of course. Ha. Ha. Ha," Histoire replied, going along with the act. "There's so much pudding here, Nepgear. If only NEPTUNE were here, we would definitely share all this PUDDING with her."

"I agree Histoire. It is definitely such a shame that all this delicious, delectable PUDDING will have to be thrown away because NEPTUNE isn't here," Nepgear said. "I guess I'll have my HANDS FULL carrying all this PUDDING to the TRASH. I sure hope no one AMBUSHES ME as I throw this all away," she added, hoping Neptune would take the bait.

Neptune was too focused on saving the pudding to realize it was a trap, and readied to ambush Nepgear the moment she opened that door. However, Neptune was guarding the wrong room, the realization striking her by wrapping her arms around her midsection. "I got you now, Neptune!" Nepgear exclaimed.

"What the…? Nepgear, weren't you in that room?" Neptune asked as she struggled to free herself from the other CPU's grasp.

"No, I was on a speaker call with Histoire," Nepgear replied as Histoire floated out of the room she was in.

"Please, Neptune, don't struggle. This is for your and Planeptune's sakes after all," Histoire remarked, trying to placate the restrained CPU. She turned away as the work-shy CPU was slowly dragged toward her office, tearing out pieces of the carpet she attempted to grip.

The two reached the elevator.

"This can't be happening, This can't be happening… I know, I'm just having a nightmare from eating too much sugar, heh heh, yeah. A nightmare."

Nepgear pressed the button for the top floor, and the elevator started to rise.

"Nepgear, if you don't let me go I'll- I'll… I can't even describe what I'll do to you because of how angry I am!"

Nepgear led the now calmed Neptune to the office by holding her hand.

"Please, Nepgear, could you please let me slack off? I'll give you all my pudding. Promise. I'll even work harder than twice as hard next time I have to."

Neptune suddenly collapsed, and Nepgear elected to carry her the rest of the way.

"What's the point, even if I manage to get away from this, you're all gonna try and get me working again. Sigh."

As Nepgear set Neptune down and as she began to reach for the door to the office, Neptune moved in front of her.

"It's no use putting this off, Nepgear. It was gonna happen to me one way or another. Well, it's time to face the music," Neptune said as she swung the door open. "I'm gonna do paperwork, and I'm gonna like it!"

"I'm impressed," Nepgear muttered on her breath. Either Neptune was really dedicated to her skits, or she really did go through those five stages in the five minutes it took to reach the office. One could never really tell with that CPU.

* * *

"No more. I can't take this. When will it end?" Neptune asked as her face made contact with the desk.

"Neptune, we've been at this for thirty seconds and all you've done is draw all over the documents," Nepgear answered. How Histoire and the other Nepgear managed to put up with such slothfulness mystified her; she was very close to writing Neptune off as a lost cause. However, she had one more ace up her sleeve, one tool so powerful, so persuasive, it was outlawed by the Lowee conventions for being such a dangerous threat to all of Gamindustri. She pointed it at the back of the slacking CPU and activated the forbidden object.

Shk.

"Wha-"

Shk shk.

"Hey, stop that!"

"Work!"

"Never!"

Shk.

"Nepgear Stop-"

Shk.

"I won't-"

Shk.

"Work!"

"Okay, Okay. I'll work! Just stop with the spray bottle," Neptune said, capitulating to Nepgear's demands. She signed the document, put it in the "out" bin, and took another one from the pile to repeat the process.

Nepgear, tasting the sweetness brought by triumph, walked out of the office to inform Histoire on how to get Neptune to work. "Is she gone…?" Neptune whispered. She listened intently as Nepgear's footsteps traveled further and further away, until all that could be heard was the faint humming of the office light above her. She sighed, leaning back on her chair and resting her feet on the desk. Neptune was a professional slacker, and decided to take a nap. Nepgear would hopefully be gone for while.

Shk.

"Ack! I'm sorry, I'll get back to work!" Nepgear had only pretended to walk away, gradually softening her footsteps to mimic walking away, then waited for when she thought Neptune closed her eyes so she could sprinkle Neptune with water. Nepgear then walked out of the door again, with Neptune being certain she would not pull the same trick twice. After doing some actual work for several minutes, Neptune was certain Nepgear had stopped observing her, and closed her eyes to attempt another nap.

Shk shk.

"GAAHH!"

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **This chapter is a bit like a cutting from a plant; I lopped it off from the previous one, then it grew to be larger than the old one. Funny how that works.**


	8. Chapter 8

~~~Candidates~~~

"Thanks for the games, Vert, but we really need to go home. Vert…?" Neptune said, looking around for Vert. After an hour of playing Frenzy Fuzion, the trio decided to play some Speed for Need to test their racing skills against each other. Vert had excused herself before they actually started racing, and has not been seen since. As Neptune peered out of the room they were in, her face collided with Vert's chest as the young CPU attempted to enter.

"Oh my. My apologies, Neptune. I didn't see you there," Vert said, pulling the young Candidate's face out of her chest. "I stepped out in the hallway to make several calls. I was hoping we could have a sleepover, if it's alright with the both of you."

"Sorry Vert, but I have to return to my own dimension tomorrow and…" as Nepgear tried to finish her sentence, the young CPU and Candidate before her executed a dual cuteness attack on the unsuspecting Candidate.

"Please, Nepgear? Vert and I haven't had a sleepover in a while," Neptune pleaded. As Nepgear turned away from Neptune in an attempt to resist her demands, she met the gaze of the equally puffy-lipped and teary-eyed Vert.

"You love your little sisters, so you wouldn't object, right, big sis?" Vert added, edging her puppy-dog face closer to Nepgear's, the resolve of said Candidate crumbling more and more. Before Nepgear could reply, a Lowee-CPU-shaped object created a hole in the basilicom ceiling, landing in between Nepgear and Vert. The familiar figure stood up, dusted herself off and struck a pose.

"Sleepover!" she proclaimed.

"Honestly, Ram, you need to show more restraint. You're setting a bad example for the Candidates, but you're right. Sleepover!" said the other Lowee CPU as she and the Lowee CPU Candidate entered through the doorway. This dimension's Rom and Ram were as tall as Nepgear, and Blanc was slightly shorter than her Hyperdimension counterpart; they looked and dressed the same otherwise.

"Welcome to the sleepover Rom, Ram, Blanc," Vert said, greeting her new guests. "Uni and Noire said they're wrapping up a quest, and will be here shortly." The greeting was only truly received by Rom, as Blanc was absorbed in her book and Ram was busy striking up conversation with Nepgear.

"Hi, Nepgear. I'm surprised a workaholic like you is at a sleepover. You work more than Uni does, and that's saying something," Ram said, sitting down next to Nepgear.

"Well that's because she a CPU Candidate from another dimension," Neptune answered for Nepgear while simultaneously stuffing the fellow Candidate's mouth with a pastry. "You gotta try this Blanc Manju Blanc brought, it's delicious," she added, shoving one into her own mouth.

"Well, I hope you enjoy your time here, other Nepgear," Ram said, giving her a welcoming smile.

Meanwhile, Rom and Vert were having a chat on the bed in Vert's room. "These look like some very well made confections," Vert said, inspecting the Blanc Manju in her hand, "did you help her make these?"

"Blanc made these by herself," Rom answered, "she's turning out to be a great baker."

"Even though her body isn't developing, her cooking skills are at least," Vert said, chuckling. She then dodged a book that was aimed at her head, which instead collided with the wall.

"And what is that supposed to mean?!" Blanc barked, her face the signature red eye and sharp teeth.

"Be still Blanc, I merely jest. Even if you have not grown for years, and show no signs of growing, I am certain you eventually will," Vert explained. This only caused Blanc to get even more furious, and transformed. Her outfit's processors were similar in design to Rom's and Ram's in the Hyper Dimension, but she still wields her signature axe.

"Y-You meanie pants! I'm gonna smash your face in! Tanzerin Trombe!" Blanc, now Ivory Sister, said, spinning her axe around the bedroom. Nepgear looked around for Rom and Ram for help in calming the enraged Candidate, and found that they, along with Neptune, have vacated the room while Vert was teasing Blanc. As she slowly inched her way to the door, a hand emerged from the doorway and pulled her out, with her last glimpse of the room being a mischievously grinning Vert nimbly dodging the berserk Candidate's swings.

"G-Goodness, Blanc is the same here too, huh?" Nepgear said to no one in particular. "At least her vocabulary is kid-friendly."

"Vert really knows how to push her buttons," Ram said, giving a concerned grin as sweat traveled down her temple. The four sat in an awkward silence in the hallway, save for the childish insults and sounds of furniture breaking coming from the room they left.

"So… Anyone want pudding?"

~~~CPUs~~~

"Amazing work Nepgear, I never thought I'd live to see the day," Histoire said, gazing in awe at the sight of the normally negligent CPU sorting, stamping, and shredding papers. "How did you do it?" the oracle asked. Nepgear quietly handed her the spray bottle. Histoire nodded. After fetching Histoire to show her her successful plan, the two sat there quietly for six hours, as they had a hard time believing they had done what was thought to be impossible. All good things must come to an end, however, and Histoire thought that six hours of work was enough for one day.

Histoire floated over to Neptune's side and put her hand on working CPU's shoulder. "Neptune," she said, "you've done enough for one day. It is time to rest."

"Really?" Neptune asked with an even tone and neutral expression.

"Really," Histoire replied. As those words left her mouth, an unsettling silence permeated the office. After several moments, the silence was finally broken by a sigh and a thud. Neptune was panting and her face exhausted, as if she had finished a forced march around all of Gamindustri.

"Neptune! Neptune! Stay with me!" Nepgear shouted as she rushed over to the fellow CPU's side, opposite from Histoire.

"Need… Pudding…" Neptune uttered with her last breath. "Urk!" Neptune fainted, then proceeded to ragdoll on the chair, which caused one of her legs to clip through the bottom and start spasming wildly.

"Uhh…" Nepgear was at a loss for words. Maybe the True Goddess neglected to animate proper death animations for the people in this dimension, and instead opted for jarring and tone-breaking ragdoll physics.

"I'll get the pudding," Histoire said as she floated away, her face as confused as Nepgear's. The unconscious CPU's leg managed to spasm its way out of the chair, but in doing so caused the entire ragdolled body to fly right into Nepgear, only to harmlessly bounce off the confused CPU.

~~~break~~~

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Hopefully I'm wrong, but I feel like I get progressively worse in writing and storytelling as I make this. I often have to publish the chapter before I can even spot the obvious errors and then hastily fix them before anyone reads it.**

.

.

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Histoire floated over to Neptune's side and put her hand on working CPU's shoulder. "Neptune," she said, "you've done enough for one day. It is time to reap." Histoire pulled out her twin shotguns and signaled for the two CPUs to get down. "Death Blossom!" A dark aura surrounded the oracle as she fired shell after shell at the filing cabinets and stacks of papers that cluttered the room, causing the shredded bits of manila folder and paper to fly around.


	9. Chapter 9

~~~Candidates~~~

After Blanc had finished tearing through one of Vert's bedrooms (she had multiple for storing her collections) and Vert halfheartedly apologized, the group was led to a more spacious lounge to continue with the sleepover. In the room the space had been cleared of all furniture except for a small table that had a rod in the center and several helmets around it, one for each CPU and Candidate. The helmets were akin to those astronauts wore, a round, clear bubble with a small antenna on top. In the top four corners of the room were what appeared to be cameras.

"I planned to reveal this at the next N3, but it wouldn't hurt to show it to off to my fellow CPUs," Vert remarked. She walked over to the table and put one of the gadgets on her head, and motioned for everyone else to do the same.

"Oh, Vert, are we going to space?" Neptune asked as she checked her helmet for any cracks before putting it on.

"Sorry to disappoint Neptune, but these helmets are designed with something else in mind," Vert answered. After ensuring everyone had their helmets on, Vert flipped the switch on the rod in the table. "Behold, the new Leanbox Holobubble!" she announced, as everyone's bubbles briefly turned white, then became clear again.

"I think it's broken," Neptune said.

"Yeah, I don't notice anything different," Blanc added, looking around.

"I haven't spawned anything yet," Vert said, pulling up a menu with a gesture of her hand, and pressed on an option. In front of her appeared a Dogoo, with an audible pop that caused everyone to turn to it. Rom patted top of the virtual monster, and was surprised at how tangible it was.

"Oh my, it's not actually there right?" Rom asked, holding the Dogoo in her hands.

"Welcome to augmented reality, ladies," Vert said. "The Holobubble not only projects realistic visuals, but also uses a non-intrusive neural link to make the holograms feel, look, smell, and even taste real."

"Why not just use the neural link alter sight instead of using a bubble and holographic projectors?" Blanc retorted. Vert responded by giving Blanc a blank stare, unable to form a proper response.

"Good job, Blanc, you made Vert crash!" Neptune said to Blanc, then took a closer look at Vert. In both of the frozen CPU's eyes were three quarters of a red circle. "Somebody get me some towels," Neptune ordered. Nepgear tried to leave the room to get some towels, but a hardlight barrier blocked her from leaving.

"Could someone turn off the Holobubble? It won't let me leave," Nepgear said, tapping on the seemingly real wall made of light in front of the door. Blanc tried to reach for the switch in the table, only for her hand zapped by the rod. A message box appeared in front of her.

 _Parental Safety Lock is on._

 _Only authorized individuals may turn off the Holobubble._

 _For more information, read the Leanbox Holobubble User Manual._

"Parental controls? Who in the right mind would put parental controls that kept kids from turning off the console?" Blanc asked, then remembered it was Vert who made the technology currently holding them hostage inside the room. Blanc also saw this as a golden opportunity to get back at Vert, and mimicked Vert's earlier hand gesture so she could spawn a pen to draw with all over the busty CPU's helmet, chuckling all the while.

Rom and Ram were quietly spawning and despawning several monsters in the corner, testing out the technology's capabilities. Neptune was in a corner testing out the holographic food, mainly holographic pudding. As the Candidate brought the holographic spoon filled with holographic pudding closer to her mouth, the utensil started to disappear as it came in contact with the bubble around her head. This caused Neptune to cry out in disappointment and throw the spoon across the room.

Neptune's spoon hit the Ancient Dragon Rom and Ram were inspecting, causing one point of damage to the monster. Unfortunately for everyone in the room, that one point of damage caused the Holobubble to active combat mode, which disabled further spawning of objects, gave everyone a health bar to look at at the bottom of their bubbles, and activated the Artificial Intelligence of any spawned monsters.

The Ancient Dragon proceeded to roast the twin CPUs of Lowee with its fire breath. "AAAAHH!" Rom and Ram screamed as they were barbecued by the searing flames, rolling on the floor in agony.

"You'll pay for setting my friends on fire, dragon! Nep punch!" Neptune said, throwing a left hook right into the dragon's leg, causing no damage. Neptune reeled in pain from punching the rock hard scales of the monster, rolling on the floor beside the two CPUs. Nepgear ran around, dodging the dragon's swipes as she thought of a way out of this. Blanc pulled out one of her many books inside her coat and sat down in a corner to read silently.

* * *

"Vert needs to put maps in her basilicom. All the hallways look the same," Uni remarked as she walked down one of the basilicom's many corridors. A smaller, more petite Noire trailed behind her.

"How about we just go home? I'm getting sleepy," Noire suggested, yawning. As the Lastation CPU and Candidate walked and walked along the hall, Noire heard muffled noises nearby, and spotted light coming from one of the doors. She tugged on the hem of the older CPU's skirt and led her to the door. Uni opened the door and found Vert standing as still as a statue, Rom, Ram, and Neptune rolling on the floor in pain, Nepgear doing a complex form of panicked aerobics, and Blanc nonchalantly reading in the far left corner of the room. They were all wearing odd helmets, and two were on the table in the center, apparently reserved for them.

"Uni, perfect timing! Could you- oh goodness!" Nepgear said, ducking under nothing. "Could you turn off the rod in the center of the room?" she pleaded. Uni calmly walked over to the center of the table and turned the rod off. Nepgear stopped her odd dance to catch her breath. The three on the floor stopped rolling back and forth.

"Hey, the pain stopped! Thanks, Miss Uni!" Neptune exclaimed, taking her helmet off. "Could you bring me some towels? We need to reboot Miss Vert."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

 **I've been using this place as a soapbox instead of talking about the story, so let's talk about the story. Chapter 5 feels the most out of place for me, going backing and rereading my story. It was rather dramatic and action-filled compared to all the other chapters. It also gave me writer's block for writing chapter 6 as I was temporarily at a loss for how to continue after trying to write action and feels in one chapter. Thinking back, it was just as angsty as what I had planned.**


	10. Chapter 10

~~~CPUs~~~

After having her mouth stuffed with pudding, Neptune had returned to her normal self. She was bored out of her mind however, as Nepgear forgot where she had stowed away all of Neptune's games, and the basilicom lockdown would not lift until tomorrow. She stared at the empty plastic cup in her hand. The last cup of pudding inside the basilicom, now empty.

She turned her attention to Nepgear sleeping peacefully in the bottom bunk. Beside her head on the pillow was her N-Gear, the logo on its back blinking softly. She and Nepgear had different taste in single-player games, and a Nepgear from a different dimension would probably be no different, but any game would do for Neptune at that moment. Worming her way over to the bunk beds, Neptune quietly grabbed the N-Gear and climbed up to her bunk.

Once situated in her bed, Neptune flipped the N-Gear over to have the screen face her and pressed the power button on the top. The screen flickered to life, and black tentacles poured out, wrapping themselves around Neptune's arms. "How kinky," Neptune remarked as more tentacles came out to wrap around her legs. "I always thought Nepgear would be into more mechanical- jinkies!" The tentacles suddenly retracted into the device, taking Neptune along with it.

The N-Gear bounced off the top bunk and onto the floor with a resounding thud, waking Nepgear up. "Goodness, it was a great idea to install shock absorbers even if it made it bulkier," Nepgear said, picking the N-Gear up and inspecting it for damages. With no further disturbances, Nepgear placed the N-Gear under her pillow and returned to dreamland.

* * *

"oomph!" As Neptune got to her feet she found herself inside a completely blank area. "Hello! Anybody! Nepgear! Histy!" Neptune shouted into the endless white plane. Not even an echo replied to the lost CPU, for there was nothing to reflect the sound.

Dropping her empty cup of pudding to the ground, Neptune picked a direction, and walked. Straight ahead the CPU marched through the empty area, until she spotted something not white off in the distance. Happy to finally discover something in this desolate space, the relieved CPU sprinted toward the object.

Unfortunately, all she found was an empty cup. Frustrated and disappointed, Neptune forcefully threw the empty cup into the distance. As the thrown cup quickly disappeared from view (Neptune had a strong throwing arm), another cup struck the CPU in the back of the head. "Ouch! How rude, throwing a cup at a person," Neptune picked up the cup that hit her, and wound up her throw like a baseball pitcher. "Take this!" she exclaimed as she threw the cup with full strength in the direction it came from. "That'll show them- oof!" Yet another cup struck The back of Neptune's head, this time with enough force to knock the smug CPU to the floor.

"Okay, you asked for it!" Neptune promptly transformed into Purple Heart and sped toward the direction of the culprit, leaving scorch marks on the ground. As she neared her assailant's possible location, she found scorch marks. Whoever threw the cup at her had left in a hurry. Purple Heart followed the trail, pushing her body to go faster and faster in an attempt to catch up.

The CPU accelerated more and more, easily breaking the sound barrier, then going beyond that. The scorched trail she was following began to blur as she approached the speed of light itself. Despite her impaired vision, Purple Heart could see a tiny violet speck in the distance, most likely the cup thrower. A streak of purple trailed behind her as she pushed her body past its limits.

Closer and closer she came to the unknown figure, until she could somewhat make out some features. The attacker had some very familiar braided purple locks, some very familiar processor wings, and a very familiar processor suit. Purple Heart realized that she was tailing herself and tried to stop, but at that point it was too late for the CPU to slow down to avoid a collision, and crashed right into herself.

* * *

"Goodness, it was a great idea to install shock absorbers even if it made it bulkier," Nepgear said, picking the N-Gear up and inspecting it for damages. Before she could return to sleeping, a flash of white light engulfed the room, followed by the appearance of Purple Heart with two scorch marks behind her.

"Nepgear, could I borrow your N-Gear to play games?" Purple Heart asked with her smooth, sultry voice.

"Of course, Neptune," Nepgear replied,"but why the HDD?"

"Oh! uh... I needed some courage to ask you," Neptune lied, reverting back to her smaller self.

"Here you go." The drowsy CPU pressed the power button on top and handed her N-Gear to Neptune, and returned to her slumber. The awake CPU hesitated for a moment, ready to chuck the handheld away in case of tentacles, but all that greeted her was the little jingle that meant the N-Gear had finished booting up. Breathing a sigh of relief, Neptune sat down on the window-side couch and browsed Nepgear's installed games.

~~~Candidates~~~

"Neptune, why are we running from Vert's basilicom?" Nepgear asked in between breaths. While Vert's party was certainly... interesting, Nepgear felt like a bad houseguest to leave this early in the evening.

"Don't worry about it, the story arc wasn't going anywhere anyway," Neptune assured Nepgear, looking back at the doubting Candidate to give a calming smile. the smile quickly dissipated as the Candidate, along with everything around her, was bathed in green light. Nepgear stopped in her tracks, and looked behind her.

What was once the basilicom was now a column of heavenly green light. A rush of wind blew past the Candidates, shattering all the windows of the nearby buildings. Nepgear could only watch as the light died down to reveal the crumbling, charred ruins that were once the Leanbox basilicom.

"I may have played with the orbital death laser system... again..." Neptune explained.

* * *

A sudden thirst for water pulled Blanc out of the dreamworld and back into the real one. Untangling herself from her twin older sisters' arms, the parched Candidate got up from bed and looked around. Uni was also being double-teamed as she slept, with Noire and Vert snuggling the CPU tightly. The Planeptune sisters were gone from their bed, Nepgear probably dragging her sister back home because she wanted to wake up early for work while also not having to worry about her little sister's whereabouts.

As Blanc opened the door, the hallway she was about to walk into was immediately engulfed in a bright green light, with the accompanying gust of wind blowing her night cap off. Blanc shut the door. "Vert really needs to put more security in her orbital death laser system."

With the Leanbox kitchen most likely being vaporized, Blanc dragged herself over to Rom and woke her up. "Rom, could you make me some water? The basilicom got destroyed again."


	11. Chapter 11

~~~Candidates~~~

"Hey, Nepgear..."

"Hmm?"

"Can't sleep either?"

"Yeah."

Sleep refused to grace the Candidates with its presence tonight, leaving them to stare up into the ceiling or the bottom of the top bunk. They were stuck between being too sleepy to get up yet too awake to rest. Only the ticking and tocking of the clock on Nepgear's desk could be heard in the room as neither Candidate could think of any relevant conversation topics.

A new conversation topic did manage to pop up by crashing through the bedroom window and ruining several pieces of furniture, however. "Oh goodie! It's here!" Neptune remarked as she jumped off the top bunk to inspect her order. Inside the small crater that was once a corner of the bedroom was a plain wooden barrel with a Leanbox insignia plastered on top; a small bag lay beside it contained a barrel stand and tap. "We're gonna have a fun night with this baby, that's for sure."

With lightning-fast hands, Neptune set up the barrel on top of a table, ready to let out that sweet nectar. Before Nepgear could register what was happening, she found herself in front of the tap, clutching an empty mug, while Neptune was already halfway through a pint. "Goodness... I don't know if we should have this much sugar before bed..." Nepgear said as she thought about whether or not to have some herself.

"Come on, Nepgear, live a little!" Neptune suggested as she wrapped an arm around the Candidate, her face slightly flushed from the sugary brew. "A little sugar before bed won't kill ya."

"One little pint wouldn't hurt, I guess," Nepgear said, filling her mug with Root beer.

* * *

"-and then she called a conference in Lowee just to ban spray bottles!" Nepgear said, slamming her mug on the table. The Candidate was on her fifth mug, and was guzzling down her sixth after telling her story.

"Wow, your sister must be a real *hic* handful," Neptune said, sitting next to her. Her root beer count was double Nepgear's, and caused the Candidate to have occasional hiccups.

"You don't know the half of it." As Nepgear finished that sentence, she took a big gulp out of her mug.

"I don't even see my sister *hic* half the time," Neptune said, airing her own grievances, "she's almost always off on *hic* quests or doing paperwork, and always says 'you're still too young, little sis' whenever I *hic* offer help!" The Candidate took a rather long sip of her drink to calm down.

"To terrible older sisters!" Nepgear shouted, raising her mug in the air.

"To terrible older sisters!" Neptune reciprocated, clinking her own mug with the other Candidate's. They then emptied out the rest of their mugs into their mouths.

"Neptune, Nepgear, go to bed! Some of us are trying to sleep!" Histoire yelled as she vaporized the Candidates' bedroom door. Before the oracle could get another word in, a tube was shoved into her mouth and root beer was poured straight into her stomach. Neptune backed off a little as the oracle coughed and gagged from getting something shoved into her throat. Before she could respond with more rage, a sudden giddiness overtook her. "Is there any more where that came from?" Histoire asked, writing a fairy-sized mug into history for her use.

* * *

"-so then she seals herself away and makes everyone forget about her!" Histoire exclaimed. The normally calm and collected oracle had loosened up after seven fairy-sized mugs of root beer, plus the pint shoved down her throat by Neptune.

"I didn't... didn't even know you had a sister, Histoire," Nepgear commented, the amount of root beers she had were starting to take its toll.

"She was Planeptune's CPU before Nepgear and Neptune, Nepgear. She was the closest thing I had to a sister," Histoire added, downing half her mug.

The three laughed and laughed as they told more stories about their big sisters, but as the night went on, their laughter turned to muted sobs as the stories became more and more about what they miss doing with their sisters.

"She used to *hic* read me bedtime stories every night..."

"We used to go to the park everyday and get ice cream..."

"She would always ask about my day while we were stargazing..."

The more they drank, the more nostalgic their stories became.

"When I gave her her *hic* N-Gear after fixing it, I forgot to tell her how tentacles would trap unauthorized users inside a pocket dimension."

"She was so happy I made her a sword that had the same style as her HDD. I knew she never used it because the thing broke really easy."

"I made a hat from the extra materials I used to make her HDD processors, and her face lit up so brightly when she saw we had matching headgear."

When they ran out of stories, the three simply sat at the table and drank, hoping the other two would not notice their sadness.

Until...

"I miss my sister!" The three cried out in unison, their quiet sobbing turning into full-blown bawling as the three cried their eyes out. A puddle from all their tears formed under the table, getting the Candidates' shoes wet

"Girls, wait!" Neptune said as she stopped crying. Histoire and Nepgear managed to calm themselves down to sniveling so they could listen to her. "We don't need *hic* our sisters," she stood up on her chair, "we're better than them, we've done lots of great *hic* things without their help, haven't we?"

"Histy," she continued, "you've helped Planeptune *hic* become the great nation it is today, without her help!"

"Nepgear," she added, "you led a team into the Gamindustri *hic* Graveyard to save her and other CPUs!"

"Hear! Hear!" Nepgear cheered, slamming her mug on the table.

"Hear! Hear!" Histoire did the same.

Neptune sat back down.

"To ourselves!" she raised her mug.

"To ourselves!" the other two clinked their mugs with hers.

They then swallowed their drinks. Histoire keeled over, having reached her limit. Neptune fetched out a marker from her desk, and chuckled mischievously between hiccups.

"Neptune, that's..." was all Nepgear could remember saying as she started to black out herself.

* * *

Author's Notes:

I've been really craving this thing called feedback lately. Every time I see the number of reviews go up on this story, I get this really giddy feeling like someone stuck a funnel in my throat and forced root beer into my stomach. I also rewrote this chapter three times, and didn't feel liked rewriting it again so I decided to publish it.


	12. Chapter 12

~~~CPUs~~~

To kick off the new morning, Nepgear and Histoire decided to enjoy the sunrise with some tea and crumpets. Neptune had scampered off somewhere at night (with Nepgear's precious N-Gear) to who knows where, and the basilicom staff had not arrived yet, so the two had the building to themselves. "It's always nice to enjoy a sunrise with company," Histoire remarked, lightly sipping her tea.

"I should do this more often," Nepgear said, "All I've ever really known were damp caves and the office desk."

"Monsters and paperwork don't make good company," Neptune added as she popped out from under the balcony. The CPU had climbed up the basilicom while carrying a bulky duffel bag.

"Good morning, Neptune," Histoire greeted, "why didn't you simply fly up here?"

"No time to explain, we all gotta hide in the basement. Nepgear-" she returned N-Gear. "-thanks for letting me borrow it. Histy, put the basilicom on hard lockdown. A bunch of angry goddesses are about to storm the place," Neptune said in one breath. She spoke so fast that the other CPU and the oracle had to process her words for a moment. "What are you waiting for? Choppity chop chop!" Neptune shouted as she pushed the two indoors.

"Okay, we have about five minutes before all tartar sauce breaks loose, so grab whatever you think you need," Neptune ordered as she unplugged the fridge full of magically restocked pudding and started making her way to the elevator.

"Tartar sauce?" Nepgear questioned Neptune's figure of speech as she started putting anything edible or drinkable in the kitchen into her N-Gear's inventory. Histoire was frantically hiding anything fragile and carrying important documents for safekeeping. "Does Neptune always cause trouble like this?" Nepgear asked the oracle, deciding to follow after stripping the kitchen of edibles.

"Once or twice a month," Histoire answered nonchalantly as the two entered the CPU office. With their combined strength (mainly Nepgear's), the two rearranged the filing cabinets into a corner.

"Last call for the elevator!" yelled Neptune in the distance. With preparations only half done, Nepgear and Histoire rushed over to the elevator with concerned looks on their faces. Any preparation they had accomplished might not be enough to mitigate the oncoming storm of transformed CPUs.

* * *

Despite the tall and roomy design of the area above them, the basilicom's basement was a convoluted mess of abandoned facilities, storage areas, and cramped maintenance tunnels (which mean that Neptune had to, sadly, abandon her pudding fridge). Flickering lights and musty air complemented the worn-down walls and rusted pipes the trio passed as Neptune led the group further and further into the abandoned section of the basilicom. Concrete walls and grated floors gave way to fragmented partitions and moldy carpets as they now entered the abandoned Console War research facilities. Forgotten toolboxes and stray piping were replaced with failed prototype consoles and fried graphics cards. "This really takes me back," Neptune sighed wistfully.

The triumvirate of Planeptune leaders descended through the offices, until a particularly ornate door stuck out to Nepgear amongst all the dirty whiteness that was a typical abandoned office. The intrigued Candidate peered into the room, and found an altar, crafted from black metal with blue decals on top. As Nepgear approached, she saw an old white console with four controller ports on the front and an orange spiral insignia on top. Before she could interact with the strange console, however, Neptune came up from behind and dragged her out of the room. "We haven't even gone through the third game yet, and you want to sequence break to the seventh one?" Neptune asked the CPU.

"Seventh one? Don't you mean the fourth?" Nepgear responded, being no stranger to meta discussions.

"It's the seventh game because the first three games got remade with improved gameplay and story," Neptune replied.

"But canonically that still makes it the fourth game since the remakes are only updates the first three games," Histoire chimed in as she peered into the altar room.

Sensing she was about to lose the argument, Neptune quickly changed the topic. "Nevermind that, let's keep going! We're almost to the event flag!"

* * *

After half an hour of traversing office space, the three finally found themselves facing the fabled fortress underground. It was a replica section of the basilicom that housed Neptune and Nepgear's room, with a more cozy pre-Console War aesthetic instead of the sleek modern design of the original. "They were much simpler times back then," Neptune sighed with a nostalgic grin.

"They were a less stressful time for me," Histoire sighed as she reminisced on when Neptune actually worked.

Opening the door to the replica bedroom, the trio found themselves inside a more mature bedroom than anticipated. Beside a bookshelf filled with a modest cartridge collection was an old box television with a wooden casing, old consoles lined up neatly in front of it. In place of the bunk bed was a queen-sized mattress with soft blue sheets. Instead of the cutesy desks was a large mahogany desk fit for paperwork. The window even had a replica skyline of the Console War era Planeptune, complete with shorter gray buildings, blimps flying overhead, and billboards plastered with Console War propaganda. "I was so boring back then," Neptune remarked as she jumped onto the bed, "I don't remember much, but I do remember working on that desk every night."

As the three got situated in their new temporary home, Neptune playing on the old consoles, and Histoire calmly sipping tea by the fake window, Nepgear was fixated on the bag the happy-go-lucky CPU still carried on her back. "Neptune, I have to ask. What's in the bag?" Nepgear said as she pointed to the plot device on her back.

"Panties." Without missing a beat, Neptune proudly proclaimed her perversion with a cheeky grin as she turned to face Nepgear. Her slight eye twitches and the tiny bead of sweat trickling down her brow betrayed her, however.

Before Nepgear could answer further, three polite knocks interrupted her interrogation. As Nepgear went to open the door, Uni busted down from the ceiling covered in soot. "Freeze, bitch."

"Hey, watch your profanity! This is a T-rated fic," Neptune retorted, more concerned with the content rating of the story than the gun pointed at her.

"W-Well I'm not the one who stole sharicite from another country!" Uni replied.

"You stole WHAT?!" Histoire exclaimed. Stealing panties she could understand. Neptune was Neptune. stealing the most precious item from a CPU on the other hand…

"Well I wasn't lying when I said I have panties," Neptune explained, "they're mostly Noire's." Dropping the duffel bag on the floor, Neptune unzipped the main compartment to reveal the slew of panties stored within. Some of the panties were Blanc's, some of the panties were Vert's, some of the panties were even Neptune's herself, but the majority of the panties were Noire's, true to her explanation.

 **Warning. Dimension reset imminent. Please end all instances of battle.**

"Figures. Of course you would load a save if you got caught," Uni said, holstering her pistol.

"I wouldn't do that! I finish the route I'm on before I load to an earlier choice," Neptune replied, "part of the fun is watching the bad endings play out!"

"So if you didn't load a save…" Vert interjected as she entered the room. The busty CPU was squeezing Nepgear tightly, the hapless CPU's face being smothered between two soft F-cups.

"I said subdue Nepgear, not choke her to death," Uni remarked.

"You suffocated Nepgear to death with your chest pillows!" Neptune added.

Vert pulled the limp CPU away from her body, and saw the face of a girl that could die happy; fortunately, now was not Nepgear's time. "She's in heaven, but she didn't die to get there," Vert said.

"How'd you get Vert to come along?" Neptune asked the Candidate that held her at gunpoint.

"I realized halfway through the basement she was following me instead of searching the sewers," Uni answered.

"I would never let one of my little sisters run off into a strange basement filled with Goddess-knows-what," Vert huffed, resuming her cuddle session with the blissful Nepgear.

Before the conversation could continue, the world cell, all the assets, and all the entities despawned, causing all the CPUs, and even Histoire, to enter a free fall.

 **The dimension will restart in 5…**

"I was so sure Noire would praise me this time."

 **4…**

"So this is what falling feels like…"

 **3…**

"I hope I don't get amnesia again!"

 **2…**

"At least I got to cuddle with my sister. Right, Nepgear?"

 **1…**

Unfortunately for Vert, Nepgear was on cloud nine, and could not respond.

* * *

"Wow I hard such a weird dream, but it wasn't a dream, it was a place! And you and you and you… and you were there!" Unfortunately for Neptune, there were no farmhands, no aunts or uncles, and no traveling salesmen to greet her when she woke up, so she pointed at random directions in the room then at the window. She wondered why her dreams always consisted of falling in the darkness with a random assortment of her friends and family, and nothing else. Deciding not to get hung up on it, the awakened CPU checked the calendar next to the door which told her her little sister's schedule was cleared for the next three weeks.

"Wow, Nep Jr. never has that much free time. We should do something together!" With that joyful piece of info to start off the day, Neptune first headed to the kitchen to grab a cup of pudding, then headed to her little sister's lab, eager to do some bonding, just as any older sister should.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: That's an ending I guess. As for whoever loaded a save file, I will probably write who did the deed in the** **bonus chapter later this month.**


	13. Chapter 13

~~~Candidates~~~

Nepgear loved her country. Though responsibility was more or less thrust onto to her the moment she came into existence, she never faltered in duties as the leader of her fair nation. This conviction was exactly why her desk became her bed more often than her own bunk.

"Big sis, wake up! You overslept again!" Nepgear's backup alarm clock started to shake the drowsy Goddess out of dreamland. In the addled state between awake and asleep, Nepgear could vaguely make out the sound of footsteps and the blurry colours of the Planeptune hallway. When she finally regained all her faculties, Nepgear found herself before a banquet of bountiful breakfast foods. Piles of pancakes and stacks of sausages laid on the plates, all Neptune's cooking.

"Goodness, Neptune, that's quite a bit of food for breakfast," Nepgear commented as she decided on what to eat first. Her decision was made for her by Neptune, however, as the affectionate Candidate shoved a sausage into her sister's mouth.

"Can't work as hard on an empty stomach, y'know," Neptune replied as she drenched the pancakes in syrup. Before Nepgear could get a word in, her mouth was immediately filled with an entire pancake. She mumbled incoherently in protest. "Don't speak with your mouth full, big sis," Neptune let out a small chuckle, "it ruins the flavor." As soon as one syrup-soaked pancake traveled down Nepgear's throat, another one took its place, leaving her unable to say anything to her sister until all Neptune had her fill of making Nepgear have her fill of breakfast.

* * *

"Goodness, I'm full," Nepgear declared as she patted her stomach.

"Are you sure you don't want dessert?" Neptune asked while she washed the dishes.

"N-No thanks, Neptune. I'm headed to the office now," excusing herself from the table, Nepgear exited the kitchen, went down the hallway, and found the door to her office covered in soot. How odd. Wiping away some of the ash, Nepgear found her laboratory door instead of her office's. Opening the door, Nepgear saw charred scrap metal and frayed wiring surrounding a small crater. In the center of the crater's floor were a pair of safety goggles with almost as much soot as the door she opened. Treading through the debris toward the reverse pedestal, Nepgear slowly picked up the eyewear from the ground. Nepgear found this scene oddly familiar, but she could not quite put her finger on it as to why. She wiped down the lense with the hem of her skirt and put it on.

"Nepgear, open up! I heard a loud noise. What happened in there?" Nepgear heard Neptune's muffled shouts as the Candidate yelled through the door. Hearing no reply from within, Neptune kicked the door with enough force to open it but not tear it from its hinges. As the door swung open, the scene of a blast Nepgear stood in the center of was replaced with her CPU office. At her feet were a box of office supplies she had dropped, causing its contents to scatter about. She was no longer wearing safety goggles.

"Sorry, Neptune. I must have dozed off," Nepgear responded as she got to work on picking up the scattered pens and pencils.

"Big sis, you've been working too hard lately," Neptune asserted as she helped pick up the office supplies strewn around the floor. When the two finished, Neptune stared at Nepgear intensely, being lost in thought. Nepgear stared back awkwardly, unsure of what to say. The Planeptune duo stared at each other silently for several minutes until Neptune finally finished thinking. Her intense pout switched to a calming grin as the Candidate casually threw Nepgear out of the office. "Go get some rest," Neptune ordered, "I will handle all the paperwork today." Before Nepgear could respond, the clean, soot-less door to her own office was shut, locked, and deadbolted. Nepgear got back on her feet.

With the majority of her schedule unexpectedly cleared, Nepgear was at a loss on what to do. The only things she ever did with her day were her CPU duties. The guildhall was closed today, and she was not too fond of doing public speeches…

Nepgear's replanning of her day was suddenly interrupted as she felt a light tug on one of her stockings. "Psst, Nepgear, down here!" the box with a familiar Oracle's voice whispered, "I need your help!" Picking up the compact cardboard cube, Nepgear revealed the pint-sized Oracle crawling on all fours.

"Goodness, Histoire, why crawl around in a box?" Nepgear asked, inspecting Histoire's cardboard shell.

"I-I appear to have lost my tome," Histoire explained, "Nepgear, I implore you to find it posthaste; Whoever has that tome could—and most likely has—altered history! Now, would you kindly return my box?"

Nepgear felt a sudden urge to obey Histoire's order and placed the box back over the Oracle. "O-Okay, I'll try my best." With their business concluded, the two parted ways silently.

* * *

Nepgear leaned on her desk, unsure of what to do. The guildhall was closed today, so no questing available. She had already played the entirety of Planeptune's library (she had to, mainly to ensure quality on her console), and did not want to tread on the same ground. Maybe she should get started on her memoirs, as any good leader should do. Memoirs give excellent insight on what previous rulers have been through for future generations! With a clear objective in mind, Nepgear searched her desk for some paper to write on and a pen to write with, only to find that her desk had been stripped clean of writing utensils. It seems as though Neptune was thorough in her plan to get Nepgear to not work.

Unfazed, Nepgear searched Neptune's desk for any form of writing utensil. Though she found what she had been looking for in the form of some crayons, something else caught the Goddess's eye. Setting down the box of crayons for now, Nepgear fetched out a purple book from inside her little sister's desk. The cover had a green, oval gem in the center, with a gold trim lining it and the edges. A hefty chunk of the pages within were missing.

Carefully opening the tome, Nepgear saw a childishly drawn picture of the basilicom, Histoire, Neptune, and herself holding hands (even the building) and frolicking the meadow. Below that was a small, hard-to-notice sentence written with black crayon: _"Once upon a time, two sisters lived with book fairy in a big white tower."_

The second page was a similar format, with a picture showing Vert with oversized breasts carrying a tied-up Nepgear. _"But then a big-boobied meaniepants took away the long-haired older sister."_

The third and fourth pages were comprised of a drawing of Vert and Neptune holding controllers connected to a television. _"So the shorter-haired younger sister traveled to Leanbox and dueled the boobie monster in the oldest sport ever, videogames!"_

The fifth page contained a transformed Blanc smacking Vert over the head with her axe. _"Just as things were looking grim for the short-haired younger sister, the small flat-chested girl from the mountains came in and beat up the blonde-haired fiend!"_

The sixth page housed a drawing of Neptune having a party with all the CPUs and Candidates above Vert lying down with X's for eyes. _"With the busty villainess defeated, the rest of the purple sisters' neighbors came and celebrated."_

The seventh page had a drawing of Neptune punching a dragon while Rom and Ram burned to death in the background. _"Their party was stopped early because The blonde-haired witch's pet dragon came in and burned the twins from the snowy mountains to death! The younger sister then punched the dragon to stop it from burning the other guests."_

The eighth page showed Uni and Noire in wizard robes casting a spell on the dragon and the black skeletons of Lowee's twin CPUs. _"With the help of the black-haired tsundere sisters who never said their true feelings to anyone and lived in a factory that was always cramped and hard to breath in and was designed with black metal that made the place very hot during the day, the young purple-haired sister bested the dragon and brought her friends back to life!"_

The ninth page had Neptune, Nepgear, and Histoire smiling and dancing next to a barrel. _"To celebrate the older sister's return, the younger sister had a barrel of root beer delivered to the tower and they all drank the night away."_

The tenth page had a surprised Neptune reading a book with a purple cover. _"All would have been well, until the younger sister peeked into the book fairy's history book that she always sat on and found that the story inside was different from what had actually happened!"_

The final eleventh page showed Neptune scribbling into the book with a crayon. _"Using her memory and lotsa crayons, the younger sister set out to fix the history book, then they all lived happily ever after. The end."_

"So… Do you like it?" A question came from behind Nepgear when she had finished reading. "I decided to take a break and check up on you, big sis."

"Goodness, little sis, you almost gave me a heart attack!" Nepgear replied, "Neptune, you drew all of this?"

"Correctamundo, big sis! Apparently I drew these pictures while I was drunk last night, but it turned out well," Neptune answered as she beamed at Nepgear, expecting a ringing endorsement.

"Neptune," Nepgear said slowly, "you do realize that you wrote your story in Histoire's book, right?"

Neptune's face immediately drained of any colour.

"YOU DID WHAT?!" A muffled, but thunderous yell came from a small box in the doorway. The small cardboard container started to bulge until the built up pressure caused it to explode into light brown confetti, revealing an adorably pouting Histoire with steam coming out of her ears.

Neptune was afraid to answer.

With the Candidate's silent answer, and a moment to calm herself, Histoire's face changed to a more neutral expression. "My apologies, Neptune. I was just surprised by what has happened to my tome. Nothing I cannot fix," Histoire said, shooting Neptune a reassuring smile.

Climbing onto Nepgear's lap, Histoire inspected her defiled text. "Oh my, so it seems that your story somewhat became a reality, Neptune," Histoire explained, "The Lowee basilicom was reported to have changed into a mountain overnight, and the Lastation basilicom a factory. Vert is currently in comatose at a hospital in Leanbox with several bumps on her head." Histoire then turned her attention to Nepgear. After an intense moment of staring deep into the Goddess's soul, Histoire stated, "How odd, in the absence of your actual older sister, Neptune, the dimension substituted her with you, Nepgear, and did its best to modify you into being as identical to our Nepgear as possible."

"What was I, originally?" Nepgear asked, confused.

"You were a CPU Candidate of another dimension," the Oracle replied flatly.

"So that's why big sis felt strange…" Neptune thought aloud.

"But I digress, all of this can be fixed provided I have all the pieces of my tome," Histoire explained, "Neptune, do you know where the pages you ripped out are?"

"Nope." Not even a second had passed after the Oracle had asked, and Neptune had already provided an answer. "I can't remember anything about last night, so I don't know where the pages are."

As the Candidate had finished uttering those words, a heavy silence filled the room. After a seemingly significant amount of time, Histoire finally broke the silence by saying, "Oh dear, then that leaves me with one choice, which you may not necessarily agree with."

"A-And what would that be…?" Nepgear hesitated to ask, afraid of what the Oracle had in mind.

"I will load your latest save file, Nepgear," Histoire stated.

"Why don't you just load one of mine?" Neptune asked, jealous.

"Because your last save was from twenty years ago," Histoire retorted.

"Oh."

"Now, in order to prevent another event like this from occurring," Histoire explained, "I will attempt to preserve some of the memories we have of what has transpired, though I have no guarantees."

"O-Okay, I'm ready, Histoire," Nepgear replied.

"Me too!" Neptune added.

"Here goes nothing!" Histoire exclaimed as the world around Nepgear blacked out.

* * *

"Hey… watch your… Zzzz… profanity. This is… Zzzz… a T-rated… fic…"

The first thing to grace Nepgear's ears after her alarm clock was a glimpse of Neptune's dream through her words. The Candidate got to her feet and checked the calendar containing her schedule near the door. Three weeks of her life reserved for the experiment, starting today. Shaking off the last of her sleepiness, Nepgear decided to skip breakfast and head straight to her lab, excited at the prospects of discovery.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Should have said next month instead of later this month, all things considered. Thanks for reading my fanfic and sticking with it. I'm out.**


End file.
